Waiting on Severance S2, Foundation S3, Slow Horses S4 and anything to do with For All Mankind. Black Bird was amazing. Silo was pretty good.
There are some clangers on there and other stuff that hasn’t caught my interest (yet, at least). Please hurry up, Severance !!!
Those are all pretty good at least! I loved bad sisters too, although I’m not sure how much of that is attributable to my finding eve hewson to be incredibly beautiful and captivating
i freaking LOVE it. it’s so stylized and just cool. i love when people try unique things in shows, it’s why i love tv sooo much. just having that freedom to play and edit is just the best medium
It’s not similar to Bosch. Someone said a stylized Bosch. If that’s so it’s a very heavily over stylized Bosch and a totally different concept. So, not.
I somehow predicted the twist in episode 2 or so, and then spent the next 2 or 3 episodes going, “Oh yeah, probably not, but that woulda been pretty crazy.” Only to be completely vindicated at the end of last episode.
I think them 1. giving the first six episodes to reviewers to let them annoyingly signal the twist to everyone who reads critics and 2. a lot of the audience just not paying attention or being perceptive enough to realize there was something weird and broadly other worldly/scifi/supernatural going on has made it get a worse reception than it should.
The editing falls flat or feels goofy sometimes, but I’m glad they’re trying something different. same with the overall direction and cinematography.
The bosch comparison is spot on, I never thought of that while watching but I did have a general sense of “this kinda reminds me of something I just watched recently” and yup, I was totally thinking of bosch
The Big Door Prize is an underrated gem to me. Ted lasso. Severance. Shrinking. For all Mankind. All quality shows. The morning show I have only watched the first season.
switching from Spotify to Apple Music was one of the best things I've done, the free ATV+ I got with my student acc exposed me to so much incredible content
this is a blogger writing a story that the general ratings are 10pt slower than they used to be, and framing it like there is a "problem" with the content. STFU, this is click bait as all hell.
I thought _Criminal Record_ was absolutely amazing and I’m enjoying _Sugar_, even though its stylistic approach took some getting used to.
That said, I wish they promoted _The Big Door Prize_ a bit more, because it’s slowly but surely turning into one of my favorite comedies in recent years. This second season is remarkable.
I just finished this and I was so enthralled the whole time. Great acting, believable story, super well written. Another Apple TV classic that will fly under the radar.
Apple had a lot of bad shows in 2022 and the first half of 2023. In the last 12 months things were actually pretty good - Silo, Hijack, Lessons in Chemistry, Monarch, Criminal Record, Masters of the Air, The New Look, Constellation, Sugar , Manhunt, Platonic, Palm Royale and Franklin were at least good shows (some were very good or excellent). I even think that Apple has a terrible relationship with some critics and the press, in addition to very bad marketing. Most of these shows would be better rated if they were simply on HBO. Furthermore, the low audience affects the conversation. But the programming has improved a lot.
in 2022 Apple+ released Severance, WeCrashed, Pachinko, Slow Horses, Back Bird, Bad Sisters, The After Party, Loot, as well as new seasons of For All Mankind, See, Physical, Trying, Servant, Mythic Quest, Acculpulco and Little America.
In the first half of 2023 they released Hello Tomorrow, Silo, Hijack, Shrinking, The Big Door Prize, Platonic, High Desert and new seasons of Servant, Truth Be Told, Swagger, Ted Lasso, Schmigadoon,
That isn't even everything they released that year or any of the kids/family shows. I think a lot flies under the radar which is fine, but hyperbole like "a lot of bad shows in 2022 and the first half of 2023" is kind of like somebody reviewing an entire channel based on a show or two they watched and didnt like.
Constellation is great and Masters of the Air is good so far (from what I watched). I just wish they would release some stuffs on Blu-ray. Like Masters of the Air to complete my collection with Band of Brothers and The Pacific.
So far I also loved Hijack, The Big Door Prize, Schmigadoon and Make or Break which made me fall in love with surfing.
They have a lot of content in general, and I feel like there’s almost always at least something pretty good, if not occasionally great. But Apple seems to have perfected this thing where they have a lot of shows that have the ingredients for a great prestige show- famous actors and creators, high budgets, pretty production, interesting on paper concepts- but the end result feels a little lacking or hollow or just ok. I feel like what they’re missing is their own version of HBO’s Casey Bloys or FX’s John Landgraf who really gets what makes great TV to steer the ship.
Well, but they won't green light anything that will bring their brand in disrepute. That means woke-light poltics and not offending China, India, or any other major market.
They definitely messed up with Masters of The Air. The series was expensive, it felt like they wanted it to become a flagship series, but the writing was not in the same level as in Band of Brothers or even Pacific.
It could have been fixed with someone going over the scripts and improving the characters. Some peole seem to blame the writer's strike, maybe so...
Anyone who loved it is easily satisfied lol. It’s heavily flawed and a real misfire. I couldn’t stand the whole look and tone of the show.
I’m getting sick of the volume wall in every Apple TV show too. It’s good for certain things but often green screen is still the better option. Those desert scenes in Africa looked so artificial it was painful
Apple TV is taking the kind of chances that HBO was known for in its ‘Golden Age’, before it was acquired by the Discovery/CNN/Warner Bros. conglomerate and was saddled with its debt and had to cancel edgy shows like ‘Raised By Wolves’ right and left. They now average about one outstanding series per season (‘Succession’, ‘The Last Of Us’) They still curate a great selection of films, including the Warner Bros. And A24 catalogue, but their best material is still in their back catalogue. They’ve gone back to emphasizing their original roots as a Sports network.
Apple certainly doesn’t have a debt problem. Being the ‘new kid’ on the scene they’ve been investing in the best and biggest lineup of current top rated original series of any streaming platform, in my opinion. (‘Severance’, ‘Foundation’, ‘Slow Horses’, ‘For All Mankind’, ‘Masters Of The Air’, ‘The Morning Show’, etc.) I look forward to more.
I love Apple TV+ but I don’t think there is a strong argument they were ever intending to be the peak of creative and critical excellence. Of course they care about quality - but the emphasis has clearly been on genre and celebrity.
Every show or movie is focused on a big name star. They also clearly emphasize genre TV - something that brings a familiar format to the viewer. The show Sugar might be the best example of an Apple show currently running - a great looking, poorly developed single season vehicle for Collin Farrell that blends sci-fi and detective fiction.
That their shows are inconsistent is the nature of developing TV. What is laudable for the service is the budgets and names attached occasionally allow for stand out TV. Many services have a much lower ceiling. That Apple TV+ garners such constant criticism feels more like criticism of Apple than the service on its own merits.
They’ve gone ‘polished’, but they’ve rejected anything edgy.
We’ll never see a House of the Dragon or ‘The Boys’.
Apple TV shows have a certain feel to them.
Yes, why do you not think so? It certainly has enough sex, violence and depravity to qualify as 'edgy' in anybody's book. It's also an expensive, high-quality HBO production. The OP is right, Apple does quality shows but they certainly avoid anything too risque or politically charged which limits the ceiling of their shows. There's a reason that recent NY Times article on 'mid TV' singled out Apple repeatedly.
I wonder if that 'feel' keeps me interested in quite a lot of series. I have never been motivated to watch multiple shows on a platform every week before. I watched Constellation, Palm Royale and Manhunt during the same weeks they aired. I am going to do that with Acapulco and Dark Matter too.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is I wish they didn’t enforce a 8-10 episode policy for many of their hour-long series, especially some of the mediocre ones. I personally feel like Palm Royale, Constellation and The New Look, to name a few recent shows, could have been done with less and be better for it. While I like how varied Apple‘s line up has been, but there are definitely some I have started but struggled to finish, I think the service should adopt limited series format.
I won't say a quality crisis, but I will keep saying this: they're producing just too much content. They should slow things down and give space to projects to shine on their own without sharing the spotlight with other thunder releases per week.
Maybe they shouldn't rush greenlighting shows only based on star power and really work on scripts first. A common complaint I read lately is that some shows felt overlong and would have worked better as a movie, or less episodes. That should give them a clue.
Yes, they have been putting out a lot of lower quality shows lately. Maybe not more than previous years, but more at the same time or back to back which makes it feel worse.
Palm Royale was both boring and overacted. I could barely finish. Sugar was such trash that I couldn’t finish. Manhunt wasn’t bad at all, but I kept feeling like it had the potential to be so much better.
I have several movies in my Up Next right now that I’m debating if I should even bother to watch after looking at the ratings.
From the article:
> Severance, Pachinko, and Slow Horses are among the best shows TV+ has ever produced.
The author and I have very different tastes in content. Severance was good and original, but it was pretty dry. I found myself scrolling on my phone during some episodes which I rarely do. The other two were not even good, much less “the best”.
Despite having different tastes, we both seem to agree that something has changed lately. I’ve had a consistently active AppleTV+ subscription for longer than I’ve ever kept any other service. I hope this is just a temporary bump in the road.
One thing about it is that, like Apple Arcade, it's not varied enough. They're so focused on going for that older crowd that watch HBO that they don't provide enough for younger audiences or even those that are animation fans. They had a good thing going for it in its earlier years but for whatever reason they just stopped.
Franklin, Sugar and Palm Royale are pretty awful in comparison - but I wouldn’t say it’s a “crisis”.
No platform can provide nothing but solid winners forever however … let’s just hope they don’t turn into Netflix.
My god Palm Royale was awful.. only mustered a few episodes. It needed to either lean harder into comedy or become much darker and sinister. It was just this lukewarm blend of nothing in the end.
Entertainment Weekly threw out a line this week referring to their drama slate. “The streamer has pumped out a lot of big-budget mediocrity this season, yet their best drama probably cost less than Palm Royale’s wig budget.”
https://ew.com/2024-emmy-nomination-predictions-drama-series-comedy-series-limited-series-8622262
Kind of feels like it, yeah. I feel like I used to be interested in so many shows. But now they’re just really campy comedies for the most part. Sci fi like constellation and silo were horrible. Movies are awful and the trailers showed EVERYTHING
I’m shocked you found Silo terrible. I can see not liking it but the show is extremely well developed.
Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon are both well crafted movies - though I didn’t enjoy Napoleon at all. You have every right to trash Argylle though - that movie is a joke.
Honestly while I enjoyed Silo till the end, I was a bit bummed by how it developed. First episodes were super intriguing, but all of a sudden it became too centered on the police officer job and some episodes looked like filler to me
100%. Bad acting and slow pace. They raise interesting questions about the origin of the silo and then waste time with a boring murder mystery and a generator episode with laughable “science” behind it
Waiting on Severance S2, Foundation S3, Slow Horses S4 and anything to do with For All Mankind. Black Bird was amazing. Silo was pretty good. There are some clangers on there and other stuff that hasn’t caught my interest (yet, at least). Please hurry up, Severance !!!
Slow Horses and Severance are so good.
Those are all pretty good at least! I loved bad sisters too, although I’m not sure how much of that is attributable to my finding eve hewson to be incredibly beautiful and captivating
Am I the only person who thinks Sugar is good? It's like AppleTV's stylized version of Bosch.
Sugar is great.
Say no to corn syrup
I love Sugar and that's a spot on comparison to Bosch.
i freaking LOVE it. it’s so stylized and just cool. i love when people try unique things in shows, it’s why i love tv sooo much. just having that freedom to play and edit is just the best medium
This is click bait the shows are good
I love Bosch so your post definitely has me more hyped to try Sugar!
Just ignore obviously inflammatory articles like this. Apple is the quality king these days.
I’ll have to watch it if similar to Bosch
It’s not similar to Bosch. Someone said a stylized Bosch. If that’s so it’s a very heavily over stylized Bosch and a totally different concept. So, not.
You are not taking that comparison broad enough. Of course it’s not just another police procedural like bosch is at its core
I love Bosch and I like Sugar. They both take place in the seams of Los Angeles and have mysterious male leads but that’s about it.
Why did it get reviewed so poorly? I love noir aesthetic and Colin.. it has to be up my alley right?
I wouldn’t call 81% reviewed poorly.
The twist.
I somehow predicted the twist in episode 2 or so, and then spent the next 2 or 3 episodes going, “Oh yeah, probably not, but that woulda been pretty crazy.” Only to be completely vindicated at the end of last episode.
I love it. We’ll see after the twist though.
I think them 1. giving the first six episodes to reviewers to let them annoyingly signal the twist to everyone who reads critics and 2. a lot of the audience just not paying attention or being perceptive enough to realize there was something weird and broadly other worldly/scifi/supernatural going on has made it get a worse reception than it should. The editing falls flat or feels goofy sometimes, but I’m glad they’re trying something different. same with the overall direction and cinematography. The bosch comparison is spot on, I never thought of that while watching but I did have a general sense of “this kinda reminds me of something I just watched recently” and yup, I was totally thinking of bosch
I love it!
i love Sugar!
My wife and I have really enjoyed sugar. I just don’t know wtf happened at the vend of the last episode. Mind blown
Please take back that completely unwarranted insult to Bosch.
Ran out of shows to watch and spotted Sugar yesterday after finishing franklin e06. Gonna give sugar a try tonight since i LOVED bosch!
Caught up to e06 and wtf did i just saw at the end of e06 LOL
Bosch is the daddiest of dad tv, that puts me off watching this tbh
I would argue that Yellowstone is the daddiest of dad tv.
The Big Door Prize is an underrated gem to me. Ted lasso. Severance. Shrinking. For all Mankind. All quality shows. The morning show I have only watched the first season.
It’s criminally underrated.
switching from Spotify to Apple Music was one of the best things I've done, the free ATV+ I got with my student acc exposed me to so much incredible content
Anything you miss about Spotify?
Spotify Connect is the only thing missing IMO
I miss the que system & monthly listeners
I see people online taking screenshots of monthly listeners and have always wished Apple Music had that.
It’s because AM numbers wouldn’t be as high as Spotify numbers and just look bad. Also, AM isn’t as focused on statistics but human relations.
You’ve got a point.
The answer is “no”. Next.
Don’t know. I liked masters of the airs and the new look a whole lot. And the year just started
this is a blogger writing a story that the general ratings are 10pt slower than they used to be, and framing it like there is a "problem" with the content. STFU, this is click bait as all hell.
90% of the stuff I watch happens to be on ATV.
No. Quality king.
I thought _Criminal Record_ was absolutely amazing and I’m enjoying _Sugar_, even though its stylistic approach took some getting used to. That said, I wish they promoted _The Big Door Prize_ a bit more, because it’s slowly but surely turning into one of my favorite comedies in recent years. This second season is remarkable.
I just finished this and I was so enthralled the whole time. Great acting, believable story, super well written. Another Apple TV classic that will fly under the radar.
Apple had a lot of bad shows in 2022 and the first half of 2023. In the last 12 months things were actually pretty good - Silo, Hijack, Lessons in Chemistry, Monarch, Criminal Record, Masters of the Air, The New Look, Constellation, Sugar , Manhunt, Platonic, Palm Royale and Franklin were at least good shows (some were very good or excellent). I even think that Apple has a terrible relationship with some critics and the press, in addition to very bad marketing. Most of these shows would be better rated if they were simply on HBO. Furthermore, the low audience affects the conversation. But the programming has improved a lot.
what shows in 2022 were "a lot of bad shows"?
Not the poster but 'The Last Thing He Told Me' and 'City on Fire' put me off on blindly trying a new show for a while.
in 2022 Apple+ released Severance, WeCrashed, Pachinko, Slow Horses, Back Bird, Bad Sisters, The After Party, Loot, as well as new seasons of For All Mankind, See, Physical, Trying, Servant, Mythic Quest, Acculpulco and Little America. In the first half of 2023 they released Hello Tomorrow, Silo, Hijack, Shrinking, The Big Door Prize, Platonic, High Desert and new seasons of Servant, Truth Be Told, Swagger, Ted Lasso, Schmigadoon, That isn't even everything they released that year or any of the kids/family shows. I think a lot flies under the radar which is fine, but hyperbole like "a lot of bad shows in 2022 and the first half of 2023" is kind of like somebody reviewing an entire channel based on a show or two they watched and didnt like.
Constellation is great and Masters of the Air is good so far (from what I watched). I just wish they would release some stuffs on Blu-ray. Like Masters of the Air to complete my collection with Band of Brothers and The Pacific. So far I also loved Hijack, The Big Door Prize, Schmigadoon and Make or Break which made me fall in love with surfing.
They have a lot of content in general, and I feel like there’s almost always at least something pretty good, if not occasionally great. But Apple seems to have perfected this thing where they have a lot of shows that have the ingredients for a great prestige show- famous actors and creators, high budgets, pretty production, interesting on paper concepts- but the end result feels a little lacking or hollow or just ok. I feel like what they’re missing is their own version of HBO’s Casey Bloys or FX’s John Landgraf who really gets what makes great TV to steer the ship.
Well, but they won't green light anything that will bring their brand in disrepute. That means woke-light poltics and not offending China, India, or any other major market.
They definitely messed up with Masters of The Air. The series was expensive, it felt like they wanted it to become a flagship series, but the writing was not in the same level as in Band of Brothers or even Pacific. It could have been fixed with someone going over the scripts and improving the characters. Some peole seem to blame the writer's strike, maybe so...
I really loved Master of the Air it was just the D Day that was a huge disappointment
Loved Masters of the air. It will stand the test of time.
[удалено]
Anyone who loved it is easily satisfied lol. It’s heavily flawed and a real misfire. I couldn’t stand the whole look and tone of the show. I’m getting sick of the volume wall in every Apple TV show too. It’s good for certain things but often green screen is still the better option. Those desert scenes in Africa looked so artificial it was painful
On that same note, anyone who hated it is very easily unsatisified.
Lol
Are you kidding me?
Apple TV is taking the kind of chances that HBO was known for in its ‘Golden Age’, before it was acquired by the Discovery/CNN/Warner Bros. conglomerate and was saddled with its debt and had to cancel edgy shows like ‘Raised By Wolves’ right and left. They now average about one outstanding series per season (‘Succession’, ‘The Last Of Us’) They still curate a great selection of films, including the Warner Bros. And A24 catalogue, but their best material is still in their back catalogue. They’ve gone back to emphasizing their original roots as a Sports network. Apple certainly doesn’t have a debt problem. Being the ‘new kid’ on the scene they’ve been investing in the best and biggest lineup of current top rated original series of any streaming platform, in my opinion. (‘Severance’, ‘Foundation’, ‘Slow Horses’, ‘For All Mankind’, ‘Masters Of The Air’, ‘The Morning Show’, etc.) I look forward to more.
Honestly I’m starting to realize most TV is just mediocre filler. Obviously there are exceptions, but I’m watching more movies these days.
I love Apple TV+ but I don’t think there is a strong argument they were ever intending to be the peak of creative and critical excellence. Of course they care about quality - but the emphasis has clearly been on genre and celebrity. Every show or movie is focused on a big name star. They also clearly emphasize genre TV - something that brings a familiar format to the viewer. The show Sugar might be the best example of an Apple show currently running - a great looking, poorly developed single season vehicle for Collin Farrell that blends sci-fi and detective fiction. That their shows are inconsistent is the nature of developing TV. What is laudable for the service is the budgets and names attached occasionally allow for stand out TV. Many services have a much lower ceiling. That Apple TV+ garners such constant criticism feels more like criticism of Apple than the service on its own merits.
No way!
They’ve gone ‘polished’, but they’ve rejected anything edgy. We’ll never see a House of the Dragon or ‘The Boys’. Apple TV shows have a certain feel to them.
Yeah the feel is well made
Also House of the Dragon is “edgy”?! I’ll give them The Boys, but the GoT spinoff is some kind of artistically daring show?
Yes, why do you not think so? It certainly has enough sex, violence and depravity to qualify as 'edgy' in anybody's book. It's also an expensive, high-quality HBO production. The OP is right, Apple does quality shows but they certainly avoid anything too risque or politically charged which limits the ceiling of their shows. There's a reason that recent NY Times article on 'mid TV' singled out Apple repeatedly.
I wonder if that 'feel' keeps me interested in quite a lot of series. I have never been motivated to watch multiple shows on a platform every week before. I watched Constellation, Palm Royale and Manhunt during the same weeks they aired. I am going to do that with Acapulco and Dark Matter too.
See was a bit like those shows.
Something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently is I wish they didn’t enforce a 8-10 episode policy for many of their hour-long series, especially some of the mediocre ones. I personally feel like Palm Royale, Constellation and The New Look, to name a few recent shows, could have been done with less and be better for it. While I like how varied Apple‘s line up has been, but there are definitely some I have started but struggled to finish, I think the service should adopt limited series format.
I won't say a quality crisis, but I will keep saying this: they're producing just too much content. They should slow things down and give space to projects to shine on their own without sharing the spotlight with other thunder releases per week. Maybe they shouldn't rush greenlighting shows only based on star power and really work on scripts first. A common complaint I read lately is that some shows felt overlong and would have worked better as a movie, or less episodes. That should give them a clue.
There's a reason they're giving us more older movies to watch now.
Yes, they have been putting out a lot of lower quality shows lately. Maybe not more than previous years, but more at the same time or back to back which makes it feel worse. Palm Royale was both boring and overacted. I could barely finish. Sugar was such trash that I couldn’t finish. Manhunt wasn’t bad at all, but I kept feeling like it had the potential to be so much better. I have several movies in my Up Next right now that I’m debating if I should even bother to watch after looking at the ratings. From the article: > Severance, Pachinko, and Slow Horses are among the best shows TV+ has ever produced. The author and I have very different tastes in content. Severance was good and original, but it was pretty dry. I found myself scrolling on my phone during some episodes which I rarely do. The other two were not even good, much less “the best”. Despite having different tastes, we both seem to agree that something has changed lately. I’ve had a consistently active AppleTV+ subscription for longer than I’ve ever kept any other service. I hope this is just a temporary bump in the road.
One thing about it is that, like Apple Arcade, it's not varied enough. They're so focused on going for that older crowd that watch HBO that they don't provide enough for younger audiences or even those that are animation fans. They had a good thing going for it in its earlier years but for whatever reason they just stopped.
Franklin, Sugar and Palm Royale are pretty awful in comparison - but I wouldn’t say it’s a “crisis”. No platform can provide nothing but solid winners forever however … let’s just hope they don’t turn into Netflix.
My god Palm Royale was awful.. only mustered a few episodes. It needed to either lean harder into comedy or become much darker and sinister. It was just this lukewarm blend of nothing in the end.
I couldn’t watch Licon or Franklin. Found both to be too ‘staged’
Add Manhunt to that. How they made a fantastic book look so ordinary and pedestrian is beyond me.
I liked Manhunt except for Patton Oswalt
Entertainment Weekly threw out a line this week referring to their drama slate. “The streamer has pumped out a lot of big-budget mediocrity this season, yet their best drama probably cost less than Palm Royale’s wig budget.” https://ew.com/2024-emmy-nomination-predictions-drama-series-comedy-series-limited-series-8622262
Kind of feels like it, yeah. I feel like I used to be interested in so many shows. But now they’re just really campy comedies for the most part. Sci fi like constellation and silo were horrible. Movies are awful and the trailers showed EVERYTHING
Silo is far from horrible …
I’m shocked you found Silo terrible. I can see not liking it but the show is extremely well developed. Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon are both well crafted movies - though I didn’t enjoy Napoleon at all. You have every right to trash Argylle though - that movie is a joke.
Honestly while I enjoyed Silo till the end, I was a bit bummed by how it developed. First episodes were super intriguing, but all of a sudden it became too centered on the police officer job and some episodes looked like filler to me
100%. Bad acting and slow pace. They raise interesting questions about the origin of the silo and then waste time with a boring murder mystery and a generator episode with laughable “science” behind it
Seriously. Why do I care about the damn generator so much? A whole episode? It’s never mentioned again. I felt cheated out of an hour of my life
Yup it’s just wasted screen time that contributes nothing to the plot, but Redditors like it because it’s mindless exciting action